Cooking Q&A: How to preserve leftover canned chipotles

Q: A lot of recipes call for a teaspoon or tablespoon of chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, but then you’re stuck with the rest of the can. Can you refrigerate it?

By Kathleen Purvis

Q: A lot of recipes call for a teaspoon or tablespoon of chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, but then you’re stuck with the rest of the can. Can you refrigerate it? Or is there a substitute?

A: Chipotles are smoked jalapeño peppers; packing them in spicy adobo sauce makes them soft and easy to add to dishes. But a little does go a long way. Most recipes call for a single pepper or a tablespoon of sauce.

The best way to save what’s left over is to puree it and freeze it. It doesn’t freeze hard, so you can easily break off a chunk when you need more. You can refrigerate the remainder of the can in a plastic container for a few weeks, but watch for mold.

To use up the rest, whisk some into sour cream to put on Mexican dishes, add it to macaroni and cheese, or whisk some into a vinaigrette for bold winter greens.

Chipotle is so popular that there are now other versions of the flavor. McCormick makes a dried chipotle powder, and Tabasco has a hot sauce with chipotle. Goya makes a chipotle puree in a squeeze bottle like ketchup. Look for it in Latin American supermarkets.